1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to an information processing apparatus configured to process information based on a processing condition, and more specifically to an information processing apparatus capable of editing the processing condition, a utilization system for such an information processing apparatus, and a method for editing the processing condition.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the network systems, directory services are often used. A directory service is a service such as the “active directory” with which network resources such as information on users, printers, facsimile machines and the like connected over the computer networks such as a local area network or LAN can be made searchable. The directory service can be used in various manners. For example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-087479 discloses a technology in which processing conditions of apparatuses, such as settings for printing, reading, image data distribution, and distributing users, are preliminarily registered in an external server, and a corresponding one of the settings is applied to the apparatus to execute the information processing. With this technology, users are able to carry out desired processing with minimum operations of the apparatus.
More specifically, in the technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-087479, when a user ID is input to a scanner, the scanner transmits the user ID via the network to a scan server so as to determine whether the transmitted user ID matches any of user IDs registered in an internal memory. Subsequently, if the transmitted user ID matches one of the registered user IDs, the scan server transmits information to be retrieved corresponding to the matched user ID to the scanner.
In this image reading system, if change, addition, and deletion of items of the received processing condition are made by operating an operations panel of the apparatus, the usability of the apparatus can be significantly improved for the user. However, if the user is allowed to make the change, addition, and deletion in the processing condition without being restricted, there may be few advantages for managing such processing condition in the server, and the security level of the apparatus or the system may be lowered. Since the processing condition includes a delivery destination (address) of image data, change of the delivery destination may particularly lower the security level of the apparatus and the image reading system.
If, on the other hand, the user is unable to make any change in the processing condition via the apparatus, the usability of the apparatus may significantly be lowered. Accordingly, in the related art technology, it appears difficult to improve the usability of the apparatus under the controlled processing condition while maintaining a certain security level of the apparatus.